(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Overnight News Digest June 25, 2024 [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-25 Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, eeff, Magnifico, annetteboardman, Besame, jck, and JeremyBloom. Alumni editors include (but not limited to) Interceptor 7, Man Oh Man, wader, Neon Vincent, palantir, Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse (RIP), ek hornbeck (RIP), rfall, ScottyUrb, Doctor RJ, BentLiberal, Oke (RIP) and jlms qkw. OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time. Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments. Chicago Sun-Times: Highland Park shooting suspect expected to change his plea by David Struett The Highland Park parade shooting suspect is expected to enter a negotiated plea at a court hearing Wednesday, days ahead of the second anniversary of the July 4, 2022, massacre that killed seven and wounded dozens more. The plea deal, if it’s accepted by Judge Victoria Rossetti, could bring closure to the criminal case against Robert E. Crimo III sooner than expected. Crimo’s jury trial on 117 felony counts is scheduled for February. But prosecutors said last week said they expect Crimo, 23, to change his not guilty plea in the hearing at the Lake County Courthouse in Waukegan. He pleaded not guilty during an arraignment in August 2022 and has been held at the Lake County Jail since. Extra security is planned for the 9 a.m. hearing. The Lake County sheriff’s office says it doesn’t plan to close streets, as it did at the arraignment, but will deploy extra deputies in anticipation of the potential major hearing. The New York Times: Julian Assange Pleads Guilty to Espionage, Securing His Freedom by Damien Cave Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a felony charge of violating the U.S. Espionage Act, securing his freedom under a plea deal that saw its final act play out in a remote U.S. courtroom in Saipan in the Western Pacific. He appeared in court wearing a black suit with his lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, and Kevin Rudd, the Australian ambassador to the United States. He stood briefly and offered his plea more than a decade after he obtained and published classified secret military and diplomatic documents in 2010, moving a twisted case involving several countries and U.S. presidents closer to its conclusion. It was all part of an agreement allowing him to return to his native country, Australia, after spending more than five years in British custody — most of it fighting extradition to the United States. His family and lawyers documented his journey from London to Bangkok and on to Saipan, capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth, posting photos and videos online from a chartered jet. His defense team said that in the negotiations over his plea deal, Mr. Assange had refused to appear in a court on the U.S. mainland, and that he had not been allowed to fly commercial. The Washington Post: Astronauts’ delayed return reflects high stakes for Boeing and NASA by Christian Davenport Before Boeing’s first flight with humans on its Starliner spacecraft earlier this month, the company and NASA said repeatedly that a rigorous testing program following years of delays and costly setbacks meant it was finally ready to fly astronauts. They also warned that since this was a test flight to and from the International Space Station, everything might not go perfectly. It hasn’t gone perfectly. Instead of coming home after about eight days, the spacecraft remains docked to the station, its return delayed indefinitely while teams continue to troubleshoot a series of problems — helium leaks and a few thrusters that stopped working at a critical moment in the flight — in the capsule’s propulsion system. NBC News: CDC issues dengue fever alert in the U.S. by Nicole Acevado The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a health advisory Tuesday alerting authorities, health care providers and the public of the increased risk of dengue fever infections in the United States. The alert comes as an unexpectedly higher number of dengue fever cases have been reported across the nation, according to the CDC. A total of 2,241 cases have been reported so far this year in the U.S., including 1,498 cases in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, where a public health emergency was declared in March after cases exceeded historical figures. Most of the cases reported in states are travel related, according to the CDC. The centers reported 3,036 dengue cases last year in the U.S. and its territories. This year, the incidence of dengue fever globally has been the highest on record, especially in Latin American countries, where more than 9.7 million dengue cases have been reported. That's twice as many as in all of 2023 (4.6 million cases), according to the CDC. Guardian: Kenyan police open fire on protesters as crowd tries to storm parliament by Carlos Mureithi and Caroline Kimeu Police have opened fire on protesters outside the Kenyan parliament as they attempted to storm the building in Nairobi while MPs inside passed legislation to raise taxes. At least five people were shot dead, according to Reuters, amid chaotic scenes in which police started shooting after teargas and water cannon failed to disperse a crowd of thousands who had overwhelmed officers. Flames could be seen coming from inside the building. A paramedic said at least 10 people had died and a Reuters journalist outside the parliament counted the bodies of at least five protesters. “We want to shut down parliament and every MP should go down and resign,” one protester, Davis Tafari, told the news agency. “We will have a new government.” The demonstrators oppose tax rises in a country reeling from a cost of living crisis, and many are also calling for President William Ruto to step down. BBC News: Russia blocks dozens of independent media outlets by Laura Gozzi The Kremlin has said it is blocking 81 European publications in retaliation for an EU ban on some Russian outlets. Magazines, public broadcasters and newspapers from 25 out of 27 EU member states will become inaccessible inside Russia. The Russian government said it was imposing "proportional countermeasures" to an EU decision to block Russian outlets Voice of Europe, RIA Novosti, Izvestia and Rossiyskaya Gazeta on 17 May. At the time Brussels accused the publications of "spreading and supporting Russian propaganda and war of aggression against Ukraine". The list of blacklisted media includes Europe-wide outlets such as Politico and EU Observer, Ireland's public broadcaster RTE, France's Le Monde newspaper and Germany's Der Spiegel magazine. Several Italian outlets, like public broadcaster Rai and newspaper La Repubblica, will also see their access restricted. Italy's Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the decision, saying that "it will not erase the effects of a violent, devastating and illegal war". DW: Brazil's Supreme Court decriminalizes marijuana possession Brazil's Supreme Court voted to decriminalize the possession of marijuana for personal use on Tuesday. However, the judges must still define the maximum quantity of marijuana that can be considered as being for personal use, as well as when the ruling will come into effect. This decision could happen as early as Wednesday. The Supreme Court's ruling does not legalize marijuana in Brazil but rather lessens the penalty for possession. Court president Luis Roberto Barroso said the judges ruled that "possession of cannabis for personal use is an illicit act" but not "of a criminal nature." Variety: MTV News Website Goes Dark, Archives Pulled Offline by Todd Spangler More than two decades’ worth of content published on MTVNews.com is no longer available after MTV appears to have fully pulled down the site and its related content. Content on its sister site, CMT.com, seems to have met a similiar fate. In 2023, MTV News was shuttered amid the financial woes of parent company Paramount Global. As of Monday, trying to access MTV News articles on mtvnews.com or mtv.com/news resulted in visitors being redirected to the main MTV website. The now-unavailable content includes decades of music journalism comprising thousands of articles and interviews with countless major artists, dating back to the site’s launch in 1996. Perhaps the most significant loss is MTV News’ vast hip-hop-related archives, particularly its weekly “Mixtape Monday” column, which ran for nearly a decade in the 2000s and 2010s and featured interviews, reviews and more with many artists, producers and others early in their careers. El País in English: Sweet, salty, sour and bitter? No, the textbook taste map of the tongue is a myth by Jessica Mouzo The traditional taste map of the tongue that is taught in school is a myth. The idea that tastes like salt and sweet are perceived in neatly defined areas of the tongue is wrong, or at best, a simplistic interpretation of how this intricate sensory network really works. See for yourself — put some grains of salt on the tip of your tongue, which is sweet flavors are supposedly perceived. No doubt you will be able to taste the saltiness. Science has shown that our sense of taste is much more complex than the taste map in textbooks — what’s more, it goes beyond the mouth. A scientific review published in the New England Journal of Medicine has reexamined how exactly the mouth perceives taste and recalled that other organs, such as the intestine, also have taste receptors. “It is time to let go of old ideas, such as the myth of the tongue taste map (which persists in the collective consciousness despite decades of research debunking it) and the notion of taste as limited to the mouth. Research reveals that downstream signaling of extraoral taste receptors regulates our physiological balance long after conscious gustation has faded,” states endocrinologist Josephine M. Egan, from the Laboratory of Clinical Investigation at the U.S. National Institute on Aging, in the article. The journey of the sense of taste begins when chemicals, food flavorings, reach the mouth and activate taste receptors. These cells — which are buried in the taste buds — are the ones that recognize the primary sensory qualities, the five flavors: sweet, salty, bitter, sour and umami. Humans can have up to 4,500 taste buds, and each of them has about 60 taste receptors. Once activated, these sensory cells send information about the flavor to the brain, which in turn integrates it with the stimuli coming in from our sense of smell and the information conveyed by the trigeminal nerve (in charge of registering texture, temperature or pain, for example). This is the complex process of taste perception, explains Egan. Have the best possible evening everyone! [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/25/2248671/-Overnight-News-Digest-June-25-2024?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/